PolyArchive

May-Day Ralph Waldo Emerson Daughter of Heaven and Earth, coy Spring, With sudden passion languishing, Maketh all things softly smile, Painteth pictures mile on mile, Holds a cup with cowslip-wreaths, Whence a smokeless incense breathes. Girls are peeling the sweet willow, Poplar white, and Gilead-tree, And troops of boys Shouting with whoop and hilloa, And […]

Introduction to Wallace Stevens: A Poet of Imagination and Abstraction Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) occupies a revered place in American poetry, celebrated for his intricate use of language and his philosophical exploration of art, imagination, and reality. A master of modernist verse, Stevens seamlessly blended intellectual depth with musicality, crafting poems that challenge and reward readers […]

748 Emily Dickinson Autumn—overlooked my Knitting— Dyes—said He—have I— Could disparage a Flamingo— Show Me them—said I— Cochineal—I chose—for deeming It resemble Thee— And the little Border—Dusker— For resembling Me—

449 (I died for Beauty—but was scarce) Emily Dickinson I died for Beauty—but was scarce Adjusted in the Tomb When One who died for Truth, was lain In an adjoining Room— He questioned softly “Why I failed?” “For Beauty,” I replied— “And I—for Truth—Themself are One— We Brethren, are,” He said— And so, as Kinsmen, […]

A Letter from Sophia Peabody to Nathaniel Hawthorne Sophia Amelia Peabody (1809-71) was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1809, the youngest of three talented sisters. Sophia, though troubled by ill health for much of her life, was a painter and copyist. From 1833-35 she lived in Cuba, in the hope that the climate might there […]

The Sky is Low, the Clouds are Mean Emily Dickinson The Sky is low — the Clouds are mean. A Travelling Flake of Snow Across a Barn or through a Rut Debates if it will go — A Narrow Wind complains all Day How some one treated him Nature, like Us, is sometimes caught Without her Diadem […]

Edna St. Vincent Millay The Courage that My Mother Had The courage that my mother had Went with her, and is with her still: Rock from New England quarried; Now granite in a granite hill. The golden brooch my mother wore She left behind for me to wear; I have no thing I treasure more: […]

288 Emily Dickinson I’m Nobody! Who are you? Are you—Nobody—Too? Then there’s a pair of us! Don’t tell! they’d advertise—you know! How dreary—to be—Somebody! How public—like a Frog— To tell one’s name—the livelong June— To an admiring Bog!   A pair of them? I’m intrigued that there are two substantially different versions of this poem […]